Somalia's ´phoney war´ sows confusion

Children are hesitating as to whether or not they should risk the journey to school because they don't know who they will find there.

MOGADISHU, March 1, 2010 (AFP) - The final battle for military control of Somalia was announced, fighters prepped for combat and civilians sent scurrying for shelter. Then nothing happened but a war of words.

Recent violence has been largely internecine, with government forces clashing over the control of checkpoints or Shebab and Hezb al-Islam fighters vying for supremacy within the insurgency.

Late last year, the embattled transitional federal government (TFG) promised its newly trained troops would launch an offensive to punch their way out of the single Mogadishu neighbourhood they control and reconquer the country.

In January, residents fled massively as the TFG and its allies looked poised for a nationwide assault against the Shebab, a self-proclaimed component of Al Qaeda's global jihad that controls 80 percent of the country.

But as the fractious nation's myriad armed factions continue girding for war, a state of confused expectancy has set in and some residents have begun deriding the much talked about offensive by dubbing it "Operation Insh'allah".

"The people you call government have been saying they will wage their battle to capture Mogadishu for almost a year now," a top Shebab military leader told AFP in Mogadishu on condition of anonymity.

"But they have achieved nothing but shame and defeat," he bragged.

Over the past year, President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed has toured the world for support but in Mogadishu he has been largely confined to his compound, boxed in by insurgents and protected by an African Union peacekeeping contingent.

The Shebab military leader said his movement had a counter-attack strategy in place and explained the lull in hostilities by a willingness to spare civilians who have repeatedly been caught in the crossfire.

"We have seen that the enemy forces are retaliating by attacking residential areas and killing civilians. For us the lives of our people count," he said.

Senior police official Ahmed Hassan retorted that the relative calm of the recent weeks was due to several Shebab arrests and effective intelligence work by the government's security apparatus.

"You can't tell in advance when to arrest a criminal," AU mission spokesman Ba-Hoku Barigye told AFP. "We have not announced any date for an offensive."

A senior defence official was equally non-committal on a timeframe.

"The days of the terrorists in Somalia are numbered but I can't tell you how many days," he said on condition of anonymity.

Already ravaged by two decades of almost uninterrupted civil violence, Somalia is one of the conflicts generating the highest numbers of displaced people in the world.

Halima Mohamoud, a mother of six, no longer knows in what direction to run.

"I have been displaced twice by the upcoming major fight between the rival camps and now I am compelled to return after nothing happened," she said.

She returned to Mogadishu's Huriwa district over the weekend, leaving her two smallest children behind with hundreds of thousands of other displaced civilians in the nearby village of Afgoye.

Ali Abbas Ali owns a truck which he has been using to ferry people away from the capital. He says he is now being hired by people returning to Mogadishu.

"I've been getting so much work for this crazy shuttling in and around Mogadishu," he explained.

Children are hesitating as to whether or not they should risk the journey to school because they don't know who they will find there.

"I came home one day and saw my mother crying because I was very late. The school bus couldn't drop us off because the driver fled with his family," said Ilyas Guled, a 14-year-old from northern Mogadishu.

Asha Mumin Dheere, 16, stopped going to school altogether.

"Everyday, we worry about this major offensive and the heavy shelling that will come with it," she said. "I'm skipping school until a winner emerges from this mess."

"We don't know who's who in this war-plagued city. Everybody is claiming the support of the people of Somalia," said Amina Hirsi, a textile merchant.

"The truth is that the people don't have a voice and nobody will ask them what they want," she said.